Vox is clipping/cutting out

[morfiend]

I've been having a problem with my vox and cant seem to solve it!

 In game it sounds like the mic is clipping or cutting out,I've tried adjusting mic,new sound card,different headset,front panel/back panel conections,etc.

 It seems to work in other programs,skype,teamspeak,etc but for the life of me I cant get it working right ingame.

 I use Vista64,soundblaster sound card Xfi,plantronics headset. I'm not sure what I've overlooked but I could use some help/advice...

                                                                                                                          TIA
   

[guncrasher]

do you try another mike?  I keep swithcing them because one will develop problems that fix themselves over time.

semp

[Kermit de frog]

Try backing up AH, then delete the original AH, reinstall AH and see if that works.

[ImADot]

Not sure if it will help, but before you try deleting and reinstalling, go to your AH2/Settings folder.  Rename ahvoc.cfg and then try running the game.  You will then probably have to set your voice prefs again...

FYI, here's my ahvoc.cfg contents:
0,UseWaveIn
0,RangeChannelBeeps
0,TuneChannelBeeps
1.00,MicVolume
1.00,SpeakerVolume
0.18,EfffectVolume

[kilz]

Try backing up AH, then delete the original AH, reinstall AH and see if that works.

you dont have to delete the whole game. besides backing it up saves the problem he is having due to you are saving the files that the bug is in.

i would go with trying to use a diffrent mic first and let us know how that works for you

[hlbly]

I think it is the positioning of your mic and that ah seems to boost mic settings  . I have noticed  that what sounds good in windows seldom sounds good in game . What I have done is setup my mic so it is just audible in windows ,no more than that . Note the position of your mic ,make sure you have the same general positioning . If you are still cutting out lower the mic settings in windows . When I got new pc I had this problem bad . This has worked for me .

[morfiend]

Thanks guys,tried Hlbly's idea and it works somewhat better!

[kilz]

Thanks guys,tried Hlbly's idea and it works somewhat better!

if that worked then it makes me want to ask do you have mic boost turned on in advance settings on windows and in the game

[morfiend]

Killz,

  what I did was,set lowest recording level{16 bit} lowered mic level to 10%, enabled boost and that seemed to do the trick.Is it perfect? no but the clipping is gone for the most part.

 Vista doesnt have a hardware acceleration so I wasnt able to lower it,so I checked my sound card and it was set to 24bit sound at studio quality,I lowered that to 16bit cd quality,it's lowest setting and tried that.I still was getting clipping so I tried Hlbly's idea and lowered the mic to around 10% this seemed to reduce the clipping and allows me to say more that 1 word....

 Anyone experencing vista vox woes might try this and see if it helps!

 Again thx to all the helped.

  

[Chalenge]

The problem is the sound card. Vista works best with better sound cards like the HT Omega Striker 7.1 whereas the XFi (even the best one) will introduce anomalies and in the worse case terrible stutters (the low end XFi is really 16-bit and depends heavily on the CPU). I dont believe it will be much different under Win7.

[Kermit de frog]

Is your plantronics headset a USB version?

[morfiend]

Kermit,

 No it's a basic analog set,plugs direct to sound card.

 Chalenge,

 It's an older Xfi gamer extreme,I had in an old machine.I put it into my new computer because I was having vox issues while using onboard sound.

   

[boomerlu]

Morfiend,

I used to be/am an audio nut. Clipping can occur in a number of places - in each case it occurs because you exceed the volume limit of whatever part you are "driving".

Signal chain roughly:
Mic -> Sound card -> Windows -> AH Program -> AH Output

From what you've said, everything is fine up to Windows. Then something happens around Windows->AH Program -> AH output. In light of this, hlbly's suggestions seem to be the most reasonable fix. Mess with the AH program's settings to determine if it's AH Program -> AH Output. Likewise, mess with Windows settings to see if it's Windows->AH program. When you find out which it is, just lower the volume before the component which clips and boost it after that same component.

Bit rate: I've had problems with sound cards trying to convert back and forth between 16 and 24 bit. If you honestly don't know/can't tell the difference, stick with 16 bit for everything - it's less resource intensive (though this should hardly be an issue) and more straightforward.

Small primer: bit rate defines the "noise floor". The higher the bit rate, the lower the noise floor and therefore the bigger the difference in volume from the loudest possible sound and the quietest possible sound.

[kilz]

Vista

my apologies i did not see you where using vista I DONT KNOW JACK ABOUT VISTA

[ImADot]

It sounds like you've pretty much gotten yourself up and running again, but one other thing to try is using "Wave Out" from inside the AH2 voice prefs.  Sometimes that helps when people have transmission problems.